By Your Side
by ciaofay
Summary: One shot song fiction of By Your Side by Beachwood Sparks. Set in Journey's End before the demise of Donna. The Doctor doesn't want to erase Donna, and even if he wanted to, he couldn't bring himself to do so. He finds her, and he brings her home. Romantic at a glance. Enjoy!


The song is By Your Side by Beachwood Sparks. I do not own the song. Enjoy!

"I thought we could try the Planet Felspoon. Just cos, what a good name! Felspoon! Apparently, it's got mountains that sway in the breeze. Mountains that move, can you imagine?" Donna asked, once again trying to cheer the Doctor up. Usually, it worked. But not this time.

"And how d'you know that?" The Doctor asked.

"Because it's in your head. And if it's in your head, it's in mine!" Donna giggled.

"And how does that feel?" The Doctor questioned morosely.

"Brilliant! Fantastic! Molto bene! Great big universe, packed into my brain! You know you could fix that chameleon circuit if you tried hotbinding the fragment links and superseding the binary, binary, binary, binary, binary, binary, binary… I'm fine!" She exclaimed. The Doctor frowned.

"Nah, never mind Felspoon. Know who I'd like to meet? Charlie Chaplin! I bet he's great, Charlie Chaplin. Shall we do that? Shall we go and see Charlie Chaplin? Shall we? Charlie Chaplin? Charlie Chester, Charlie Brown, no, he's fiction, friction, fiction, fixing, mixing, Rickston, Brixton… Oh my God!" She shrieked, holding her hand.

The Doctor walked over to her morosely.

"D'you know what's happening?" He asked quietly.

"Yeah." Donna replied.

"There's never been a human- Time Lord metacrisis before now. And you know why." The Doctor stated.

"Because there can't be." Donna nodded, finally understanding what would happen to her.

She turned away.

"I want to stay." She cried.

"Look at me, Donna. Look at me." The Doctor instructed. She turned back to face him.

"I was gonna be with you. Forever." She told him, eyes wet with tears.

"I know." The Doctor replied, feeling like he could cry too.

"Rest of my life. Travelling. In the TARDIS. With you." She told him.

He simply watched her.

_You think I'd leave your side, baby? You know me better than that._

"No! Oh my god… I can't go back. Don't make me go back. Doctor, please, please don't make me go back!" Donna yelled, sobbing.

_You think I'd leave you down, when you're down on your knees? I wouldn't do that._

"Donna. Oh, Donna Noble you impossible thing. We've had the best times." The Doctor said. She looked at him in despair.

_Because I tell you you're right when you want._

"But I can't let you get lost. How can I?" He asked.

_And if only, you could see into me._

"I'm going to find you, and bring you home." He told her. Donna smiled.

_Oh, when you're cold, I'll be there, hold you tight to me._

"Because I can't lose you." He stated.

_When you're on the outside, baby, and you can't get in. I will show you, you're so much better than you know._

"Not after all we've been through." He explained.

_When you're lost, when you're alone, and you can't get back again._

"You mean too much to me, Donna Noble." The Doctor concluded.

_I will find you, darling, and I'll bring you home._

The Doctor placed his hands on the sides of her face and looked into her eyes. He kissed her forehead and she smiled.

_And if you want to cry, I am here to dry your eyes._

He sucked in a deep breath and she squeezed her eyes tight shut to help him out. He sucked everything Time Lord from her mind and back into his own, causing a flux of pain and power to flow straight into his brain.

_And in time, you'll be fine._

"I'll send it…. Back where… It belongs." He said through gritted teeth as he expelled her knowledge into his own mind.

_You think I'd leave your side, baby? You know me better than that._

When he'd done it, Donna gasped with the shock of being a human again. The Doctor groaned, staggering to a shady part of the console. Donna rushed to help him, feeling immensely guilty that she'd caused him this pain.

_You think I'd leave you down, when you're down on your knees? I wouldn't do that._

He held his hand out, shakily, and touched his previous hand… His handy spare hand. The power surged from his body in a long stream of golden energy, coursing through the hand and causing it to twitch and pulsate.

_Because I tell you you're right when you want._

When he'd expelled the energy, the Doctor turned to Donna and grinned. He'd saved the day once again.

_And if only, you could see into me._

"I thought you were going to erase my mind then." Donna sighed, laughing with relief, her eyes fluttering in the back of her head.

_Oh, when you're cold, I'll be there, hold you tight to me._

"Easy!" The Doctor exclaimed. "You'll be dizzy for a while." He told her, catching her as she fainted. "Or you'll faint for a while. Either or." He shrugged, carrying her to the jumpseat and laying her down.

_Oh, when you're low, I'll be there, by your side._

He bounded over to the console, only to stop and look at her once more. His Donna Noble, the most important woman in his universe.

_Oh, when you're cold, I'll be there, hold you tight to me._

_Oh, when you're low, I'll be there, by your side, baby._

I think By Your Side is such a perfect song both for my version of the ending of series 4, and the true ending. You can apply it to both relationships. I'm not going to talk about my version, I'm going to talk about the true ending to series 4 and why this song made me cry thinking about the two of them. Does that make me sad? Yes… I think it does.

Firstly, the Doctor and Donna have such an intimate knowledge of the other, 1.) Because Donna can see into his mind and 2.) Because they're such good friends. Because of this, when the song says '_you know me better than that'_ it just sounds to me like something the Doctor would tell her.

And when Donna's begging for her life, '_you think I'd leave you down, when you're down on your knees?' _Fits perfectly! She's begging for her life, in a way, and the Doctor obviously really doesn't want to take it from her, but he has too or else she'll die. He's got a big moral decision, and I feel that this song describes _his_ inner thoughts on her death.

And my favourite line of the song is '_And if only, you could see into me.' _It's like Donna will never understand how the Doctor is feeling because he's not the type of person to admit his love. Take Rose as an example. So for her to understand the complexity of his decision, she'd have to see into him.

_Oh, when you're cold, I'll be there, hold you tight, to me.' _Is more romantic, but the essentials are still there. If one was in pain, the other would help them out.

Another essential part to the Doctor and Donna's relationship is how she feels about herself. '_When you're on the outside, baby, and you can't get in. I will show you, you're so much better than you know.' _Donna constantly brings herself down, and the Doctor constantly tells her she's 'so much better than she knows.' It's beautiful, and how perfect is that for them two?

And finally, this relates to when the Doctor has wiped Donna's memory and has taken her back to Wilf and Sylvia. '_When you're lost, when you're alone, and you can't get back again. I will find you, darling, and I'll bring you home.' _Donna has essentially been 'lost' because she doesn't remember anything about the past year or so of her life. She's 'alone', because she no longer has the Doctor- the only person apart from her grandfather who seems to truly love her. And she 'can't get back again' because if she does, she'll die. And the Doctor would desperately want to 'find her and bring her home' (Home being the TARDIS, obviously.)

Do you see it? Or is it just me being delusional? Haha. Tell me what you think. Do you want more of these songfics? I quite like doing them. And I have a lot of music like this to choose from.

Also, for those of you who read my other fics, with Marianne and Eleanor for example, do you want me to do songfics for them too? Let me know! I really enjoyed writing this, and I'd find in interesting to write about my own characters too.

-Fay x


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